Oh Mrs Gaskell !

I was delighted when Katherine of Gaskell Blog introduced The Gaskell Reading Challenge.

You see, for many years I felt that I would enjoy your books, and yet I never picked them up. And then, when the BBC adaptation of Cranford was aired, my mother asked me if I had ever read it. I said that I hadn’t, and she told me that she had studied it for ‘A’ Level English, and that it was a wonderful book.

We both loved the adaptation, and I was struck by the comments that my mother made about the characters and the changes that had been made. I should explain that my mother’s short-term memory is very poor and, though she still loves the idea of books and is always interested in what I am reading and what books are coming into the house, she lacks the ability to retain details of plot and character and so she very rarely finds a novel that can hold her interest. And yet Cranford came back to her after nearly fifty years …

And so of course I read Cranford too, and of course I loved it.

But what to read next?

I was still pondering that question when Katherine came along with her challenge.

I signed up, but I still couldn’t make up my mind. It was soon made up for me though, when I saw that there was to be A Group Read of The Moorland Cottage.

I thought that I had a copy tucked away somewhere, and indeed I did. I pulled it out, I began to read and I was completely captivated. I even wrote a few posts along the way, but then disaster struck. The book vanished! I searched high and low, but there was no sign of it. And I was so cross with myself for losing the book that I forbade myself from ordering it in from the library.

But one day, when I was looking for something else entirely, I found my book tucked away in my mother’s knitting basket. I really should have known that the name Gaskell would catch my mother’s eye, and I know now where I should look first the next time a book disappears.

The story and the characters had stayed with me, and so I was able to pick up the threads so easily and read to the end.

I really did intend to write a little more about The Moorland Cottage, but I’m afraid I haven’t yet. I think I’m going to read it again, right through, and then it will be time to write.

And after the Moorland Cottage I read North and South. It was a book that had been calling me for a very long time, and it occurred to me that I could involve my mother.

I pulled the book from the shelf and I ordered the DVD of the BBC adaptation from the library. I started the book first and always read ahead of the DVD, as I wanted my first impressions to come from the original material. And we watched the DVD over several nights.

I loved the book. At first I saw similarities to The Moorland Cottage, but North and South very soon grew into something bigger and more powerful.

And we both loved the dramatisation. I saw a number of changes from the book, but they were changes that I could understand and accept as necessary to make North and South work in another medium.

I’m thinking that maybe later in the year I will order the DVD of Wives and Daughters so that I can share that book with my mother in the same way.

But that’s for the future.

For now, my reading challenge is done and all that there is left for me to do is go away and ponder just how to express my feelings about two wonderful books …

The Darkroom of Damocles: thoughts and a giveaway

I must confess that I expected The Darkroom of Damocles to be a dark and difficult book. The title, the description of the author as “one of the most important Western European authors to emerge from the postwar period”, and that oh so dark cover all suggested that to me.

But I was wrong. This is a terribly readable book, simply, clearly and very well written, and it is very easy to keep turning the pages to see what happens. It’s almost a case of serious literary meets gripping thriller. And I should also mention that it’s a book to make you think, and go on thinking for some time after you’ve put it down.

The Darkroom of Damocles is the story of one man’s life, and how it is changed by the Nazi occupation of Holland.

Henri Osewoudt didn’t have the best start in life. An only child, he grew up in his parent’s tobacconist’s shop until, when he was twelve years-old, his mother killed his father and was committed to an asylum. The young Osewoudt was taken in by his aunt and uncle, and soon found himself ensnare by his older, unprepossessing cousin. She saw, in the worryingly passive young man, a chance of a husband, a business, and a home of her own.

Osewoudt was short, fair, unable to grow a beard, and he had a girlish high-pitched voice. And he continued to be utterly passive. And so, as he was half a centimetre too short for military service, when war broke out in Europe he was back in the tobacconist’s shop, with a wife he was none too sure he wanted, and his mother released into their care.

The catalyst for change is a man named Dorbeck. He has a startling resemblance to Osewoudt, save that where Osewoudt is painted in shades of grey Dorbeck is painted is vivid colours. Dorbeck didn’t let his half centimetre deficiency keep him out of the military, and he has no lack of ambition, or confidence.

He speaks of the importance of the Dutch resistance, and he draws Osewoudt in. First there are simple tasks - developing films, mailing packages – but gradually the complexity and the danger of the tasks escalates. Osewoudt is pulled away from his home and his family and into another world. And he becomes a different man. A man rather like Dorbeck …

Eventually Osewoudt falls into the hands of the Gestapo.  He escapes, he is recaptured, he escapes again in the final days of the war, and manages to reach a liberated area.

He expects to be received as a hero, a brave freedom fighter, but instead he is arrested as a traitor. And he cannot prove his innocence: Dorbeck has vanished without trace, a worryingly large number of those he came into contact with have been denounced and killed, and none of the handful that are left will come forward and speak for him.

Is Osewoudt telling the truth? Are there gaps in his story? Different interpretations of events?

Might he be a double agent? Might he be an unwitting pawn of the occupying forces? Or might he be delusional, and might Dorbeck be simply a figment of his imagination?

I pondered all of these questions as Osewoudt became more and more desperate, and his situation became more and more Kafkaesque.

I changed my mind many times, and the more I think the less certain I become.

But of one thing I am certain: I can’t do it justice, but I can say that this book is more than worthy of the many plaudits it has received.

Translated by Ina Rilke

***********

I read The Darkroom of Damocles for A Month of Dutch Literature , organised by Iris on Books.

It was a wonderful idea, and it pulled me towards some intriguing books I might not of picked up otherwise. I was a little disappointed in Shadow Sister, but I was stunned by the Darkroom of Damocles. And I have remembered that I have an unread book by Hella S Haase in a box in the attic that I must pick up soon, but maybe not until I’ve made room on my library ticket for Cees Nooteboom …

(I am horribly behind and I know I have a good few posts to read and more books to discover, because my internet time is still rather limited. It’s a long and painful story, so I’ll just say that I still have no wireless connection,  and my wired connection that is not in a good part of the house for thinking and writing. One day it will be sorted out ….)

And finally I must thank Lizzy Siddal, as I acquired my copy of The Darkroom of Damocles in her very generous giveaway. I now understand why she praised it so highly.

I’d like to pass my copy on again, for someone else to read, and hopefully write about too. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, just leave a comment saying that you’re interested before noon on Sunday.

The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes

Dorothy B Hughes

“The germ or seed was always a place, a background scene. And against that background, there began a dialogue or a monologue; whatever it was, a conversation. Then I would begin to recognise the characters. The plotting was the final step; it was people and places that interested me, not gimmicks.”

(Dorothy B Hughes in the MWA Handbook)

When I finished reading The Expendable Man and turned to the afterword it was lovely to see the author’s own words about her writing. And lovely to be able to nod, and think, yes she does, and she does it very well.

The story opened with a man driving through the Arizona desert as he travels from Los Angeles to Phoenix. The opening paragraph sets the scene perfectly:

“Across the tracks there was a different world. The long and lonely country was the color of sand. The horizon hills were haze-black; the clumps of mesquite stood in dark pools of their own shadowing. But the pools and the rim of the dark horizon were discerned only by conscious seeing, else the world was all sand, brown and tan and copper and pale beige. Even the sky at this moment was sand, reflection of the fading beige of the sun.”

That sense of place continued right through the story, as did the fine quality of the writing.

Hugh Densmore was a young doctor, travelling back home for a family wedding.

He saw a hitchhiker standing by the road. A young woman. And that presented him with a dilemma. Night was falling and he didn’t want to leave her there, alone and vulnerable to predators. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to take the chance of being seen as a predator, by her or by others, if he stopped and offered her a ride.

Persephone Endpapers

He decided to stop, to try to make sure that the young woman was safe. And she accepted his offer. But he would soon wish he hadn’t stop. She was ungrateful, and he could see that the stories she was telling him weren’t true. And even when he was back home, caught up with family events, he couldn’t shake her off.

And there was worse to come. Hugh’s hitchhiker was found dead. Murdered. And he was the prime suspect.

And so The Expendable Man becomes a classic tale of the wrongly accused man. The man who speaks the truth, but is not believed by the authorities. The man who the real murderer sees he can easily frame. And the man who will struggle to clear his name, and to bring the real murderer to justice.

The story plays out in the way that these stories generally do, but there are many things that make this particular story so very fine.

Time and place were captured perfectly. I was transported across the Atlantic to Arizona, and back in time to 1963.

Each and every character is simply but clearly drawn. I believed in them, their relationships, their conversations.

I believed in Hugh and I had to follow him, even though I hated what was happening to him, even though I hated some of the things he saw and heard.

And then there is what many have called a twist but I am more inclined to call a revelation quite early on. I have to say that it confirmed my suspicions rather that coming as a complete surprise, but that really didn’t matter. It came naturally from the characters, from the place and the time, and it gave the story so much depth and power.

It also means that I can’t say too much more about The Expendable Man.

Other than it is a very fine novel, a very brave story to have written in the early 1960s, a crime novel with important things to say, and a book that I am happy to recommend.

*****

The Expendable Man is my entry for letter X in the Crime Fiction Alphabet.

Yes, it starts with X the sound rather than X the letter, but X is so difficult and I promised myself I wouldn’t read a book just because I had a letter to fill. I had no X books on my shelves, I could find none that I wanted to read in the library, and I did want to read this one.

And I think those are good enough reasons to bend the rules just a little!

The Crime Fiction Alphabet is hosted by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise.

“Each week, beginning Monday 10 January 2011, you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week …”

And so next week Y is for … ?

The Gallows Bird by Camilla Läckberg

The Gallows Bird is the fourth of Camilla Läckberg’s series of crime novels, set in and around in the small town of Fjällbacka on the Swedish Coast.

It’s a series that I have grown to love, without understanding quite why, and while thinking that, maybe, I shouldn’t love it as much as I did.

Now though I have sorted things out in my head.

I had sometimes thought that the dialogue was stilted and that the characters were too straightforward. But when I read back the dialogue I couldn’t fault it. The characters spoke simply and naturally and with correct grammar. And though I could find no quirk, no eccentricity, in any of the recurring characters, I believed in them completely and really wanted to know what their futures held.

What I am trying to say is that Camilla Läckberg’s writing is completely focused on her characters and their stories. On their lives, their situations and their emotions. And that she does it very well.

She also varies her mysteries very nicely. This time around there are two very distinctive storylines.

A woman argues bitterly with her partner, storms out, and some time later is found dead in a car reeking of alcohol. Her partner is devastated, her daughter is shattered, and her ex husband is still bitter that his wife left him .

I reacted to all four characters, and I was particularly touched by the relationship between the dead woman’s daughter and her lover, as they mourned.

Real people and real emotions.

It is soon established that the death was no accident, and eventually links are made to a series of apparently accidental deaths across the country.

Meanwhile reality television has come to town. A coach load of those who have found fame in on other reality shows has arrived, to be filmed working in local businesses and interacting with the townsfolk.

This side of the story could have easily veered towards parody or cliché, but the author’s clear presentation of facts and characters meant that it was perfectly pitched. I felt concern, where I had expected to feel distaste.

The powers that be had hoped that the programme would bring good publicity to the town, but the participants are fractious and eventually a party gets out of hand and a body was found.

The investigation of both death falls, of course, to Patrik Hedström of the Tanumshede Police, and I was pleased to be allowed to watch Patrik and his colleagues at work again.

Eventually, of course, they linked the two, seemingly disparate deaths, in a very clever piece of plotting.

But before that there was routine policework, there were flashes of inspiration, and there were some lovely human details that revealed just a little more of the recurring characters.

And it was lovely to follow Patrik home, and to watch as he and his fiance Erika supported her sister in the aftermath of the events at the end of the previous book in the series, care for their infant daughter and, in between times, plan their wedding.

There were mundane day-to-day details, the sorts of scenes that are played out in so many families, and some wonderful moments. The moment when Erika, who was stressed and horribly aware that she hadn’t quite lost the extra weight she gained during her pregnancy, finally found the right wedding dress was absolutely perfect.

The Gallows Bird wraps the mysteries, the investigations, and the home lives together beautifully, and I was eager to follow all the storylines.

But it isn’t perfect. The police are still a little too reliant on Patrik’s seemingly infallible intuition, and one or two loose ends are tied up a little too neatly. I was disappointed  the cliffhanger at the end of the previous book was resolved too quickly, and potentially interesting events passed over.

And, not for the first time, I worked out who the killer was very early on. That was a little disappointing, but I was happy to spend time with the people, to see what was happening in their lives, to see how the investigation panned out.

There was high drama, and another cliffhanger at the end, so reading the next book in the series is a high priority.

That next book, The Hidden Child, has been selected for The TV Book Club. Im delighted both for the author, as her books deserve a wider audience, and for me, as I’m sure that the library will be ordering copies promptly!

Translated by Steven T Murray

Poker Face by Josie Barnard

Allie was convinced that she would be top of the class. Her classmates had made up stories, embellished the truth, but her account of “My Summer Holiday” was completely honest, completely true.

“Bugger this for a lark,” our mum said. “I’ve had enough.”

Yes. This is satisfactory. It is printed in my best hand, in my orange Junior School exercise book. I am pleased.

It is my turn to read out to the class …”

Allie wasn’t top of the class. She won no plaudits at all. Instead she was swiftly shushed by her teacher, and then sent home with her younger brother and sister.

At the age of eleven Allie was learning that life wasn’t fair, and that she had to fight using all the means at her disposal.

That’s what her mother did. She walked out on her husband and her children, never to return.

Three children in a remote Yorkshire farmhouse, with a father who struggled to cope. He cared, he tried, but he just couldn’t cope, practically or emotionally. No wonder his children were insecure, all fighting for time and attention.

Allie shows a wonderful mixture of bravado and vulnerability as she tries to keep her fractious siblings in order, avoid the attention of the school bully, and see off the very real threat posed by her father’s women friends.

Her story is honest, horribly sad, and at the same time horribly funny.

The battle continues as Allie moves on to Big School. She adopts a new, subversive strategy.

“I am reconstructed.

There were stages that had to be gone through. They took me months. First there were these glasses – brown tortoiseshell with an extraordinary large number of dark swirls in them, so they actually do look black, except under close scrutiny. and nobody will be getting close enough to do that.

My new glasses are pleasantly heavy on the bridge of my nose. They distract all attention from the wishy-washy colour of my eyes. By everyone’s standard, they are extremely ugly.

If the worst comment I get is “speccy four eyes” I will be disappointed.

It is my first day at Big School. It is vital that the immediate impression I make is as I planned.

My fringe is grown long enough to touch nearly all along the top edge of my new glasses. It’s like the fringe and the plastic frame are fused together, a mask that can be slotted on and off for complete disguise.

I wriggle my neck inside the stranglingly tight collar and tie. I certainly got that right, my degree of prissiness. My navy and sky blue tie knot is practically pea-sized. Most pupils haven’t even got theirs on yet, or they’re busy lassoing themselves with pre-knotted ones as they go.

The reconstruction is successful.”

Yes, Allie is bright, bolshy, self-possessed and, extraordinarily strong-willed. But she is also immature and quite unable to see the effect she has on others, or to see herself as others do.

Her strategy has unexpected consequences. The face she presents to the world is so distinctive, so remarkable that the school bully is captivated. She takes Allie under her wing.

And so a line is crossed. Allie is no longer fighting for survival, she has become one of the bullies. At school and at home. And she is doing so much damage, to her family and to herself.

There are no easy answers.

But there is truth, about the pain of a damaged family, about the dark side of childhood, about the difficulties of growing up, and about how you survive day by day.

Truth told in a voice that has wit, pathos, emotion. And the power to draw you in, to make you care.

Poker Face is a very little book, but it says an awful lot.

Let’s Talk About Paris …

That’s Paris in July, hosted for a second year by Karen at Book Bath and Tamara at Thyme for Tea.

A celebration of the French capital, taking in books, cinema, music, food … and I’m also thinking about a little knitting.

I’ve been pondering books for a while now, and I have come up with far more wonderful possibilities than I could ever read in a single month.

There are the older classics

I have never read any Balzac, but I had to order Cousin Bette from the library when I read Lyn’s wonderful review.

That reminded me that I’ve been meaning to read more Zola for a very long time. I can’t remember whose review I read, but I was inspired to take a another look at Thérezè Raquin. I read it years ago, and I’m sure it is a book that I might see differently now that I am a little older, but I do wonder if it is a winter book rather than a summer one. And then at the weekend I read the news that the writer of the television adaptation of Lark Rise to Candleford is working on an adaptation of The Ladies’ Paradise. It’s a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages, I definitely must read it before seeing the (anglicised) adaptation, and the cover of the Oxford World’s Classics edition is so lovely …

And then there’s Dumas and The Count of Monte Cristo. I’ve been slowly working my way through this vast and wonderful tale, and I am sure July will see a little more progress.

There are some wonderful classics from the 20th century.

I read Gigi by Colette for Paris in July last year, but I didn’t get to the second novella that came with it in my edition. So The Cat is a definite possibility for this year.

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes is another book I lined up last year but didn’t get to. So I’m lining it up again.

Tracy mentioned Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner, and so I pulled out my copy. It does look interesting, but I’m not sure. I tend to think that STW is not as good at novels as she is at short stories. But I’d be happy to proved wrong.

I have a few historical novels from the lovely Gallic Books to hand too.

There’s The Châtelet Apprentice by Jean François Parot – crime at the carnival in 18th century Paris. it looks wonderful, and the library has the next book in the series, so I should really read that one before the next one disappears from the shelves.

I have already started Monsieur Montespan by Jean Teulé, that story of the cuckolded husband of Louis XIV’s mistress. I had to put it to one side to catch up with library books and the Crime Fiction Alphabet, but I am eager to pick up the threads of the story again.

Murder in the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner is another historical mystery, and the start of another series. A bookseller is caught up in the investigation of a strange death at the Universal Exposition of 1889 …

I have two books sitting on the dining table, where I keep books that are at the top of my list of priorities.

Conditions of Faith by Alex Miller won awards when it was published ten years ago, and it is being reissued on 1st July. I have only read the first page, but I am already beginning to understand why.

I have read much praise for 13, rue Théresè by Elena Mauli Shapiro, a story inspired by being left in possession of a box of mementoes whose owner had died, and I love the concept.

And I must find time for some non fiction. I have two books waiting on my own shelves, and one that I picked up from the library today.

Liberty by Lucy Moore tells the story of four women caught up in the French Revolution.

When I remembered The Cat I also remembered that I had a copy of Judith Flanders‘ acclaimed biography of Colette.

And I will definitely be reading Coco Chanel by Justine Picardie. I was intrigued by the extracts published in The Telegraph a while back, and I was thrilled to spot this one in the library this morning.

So I have a wonderful pool of books to choose from, and I’m sure I will discover more when Paris in July arrives.

There will be films and music too, but I’ll write about that another day.

Do you have plans for Paris in July? Or recommendations maybe?

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

Wednesday 2nd January 1952; 8.45am; New York City:

“You see them every morning at a quarter to nine, rushing out of the maw of the subway tunnel, filing out of Grand Central Station, crossing Lexington and Park and Madison and Fifth avenues, the hundreds and hundreds of girls. Some of them look eager and some look resentful, and some look as if they haven’t left their beds yet. Some of them have been up since six-thirty in the morning, the ones who commute from Brooklyn and Yonkers and new Jersey and Statten Island and Connecticut. They carry the morning newspapers and overstuffed handbags. Some of them are wearing pink or chartreuse fuzzy overcoats and five  year-old ankle strap shoes and have their hair up in pin curls under kerchiefs. Some of them are wearing chic black suits and kid gloves and carrying their lunches in violet-sprigged Bonwit Teller bags. None of them has enough money.”

One of those woman heading out of Grand Central Station, on a cold foggy morning, was Caroline Bender. Her college boyfriend, the man she had expected to marry, had left her, and so her new job was to be more than the economic necessity she had anticipated. It would be the focus of her life until she found her feet again.

Caroline was starting work as a secretary,  in the typing pool of Fabian Publications. The Best of Everything is her story, and the story of four other women she meets at work.

Mary Agnes is the woman who knows just what is going on at Fabians, though she doesn’t expect to be there for long.  She is making detailed wedding plans, and looking forward to the future when she will be a housewife and a mother. April came to the city from a small town with dreams of becoming an actress, but she struggled and so she took a job in the typing pool and dreamed of love and marriage instead. Gregg is an actress too, and she has had some success, but she has to take on office work to tide her over while she looks for more opportunities. And Barbara is a young divorcee, focused on working hard and doing whatever she must to hold on to her job and support her child.

I was pulled into all of their lives, and those women provoked so many responses. Pride in Caroline as she moved up towards an editor’s position. Happiness for Mary Agnes as she shone at the wedding she had dreamed of for so long. Worry for April, as she so often saw love and a happy ending that wasn’t there. Fear for Gregg as her love became obsession. And such admiration for Barbara as she worked so hard for her child’s future.

There’s much, much more than that, but I can’t set out the whole plot.

Rona Jaffe paints wonderful,richly detailed pictures of these women and their world. I saw so many places, met so many people, and I watched the seasons change and the years pass.

All of the details rang true.

There is a great deal of dialogue, and the conversations are so varied and so real that they are a joy to read.

I can forgive a novel from the 1950s that spoke clearly and honestly about many subjects that weren’t generally spoken about then – subjects like sexual harassment, abortion, unequal pay and opportunities – many things. A few under-developed characters among so many. The odd cliché.

But I can’t quite forgive the Best of Everything for rather too much emphasis on love and marriage as the ultimate goal, and for having all five leading ladies either sailing into the sunset or undone by love. Or for making its one older career woman a harridan.

I loved the happy endings, I accepted the unhappy endings, but I just would have liked to see one woman stepping towards an independent future, becoming a successful professional, treating her staff and colleagues well …

But that’s not to say that I didn’t race through the chapters or that I didn’t love it - I did!

It’s a wonderful period-piece and a very readable book.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: W is for Written in Blood

Letter W in the Crime Fiction alphabet offered many possibilities.

I had intended to re-read Whose Body as part of my grand plan to re-read the works of Dorothy L Sayers in chronological order. But my copy seems to be awol.

The Whisperer by Donato Carisi is in my Filling The Gaps pile, but it wasn’t the right book for the moment.

I picked up Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart from the library, and it looks lovely but it wasn’t the book either.

Because I spotted an anthology from Honno in the library. A publisher I love, and I had wanted to read an anthology before the alphabet ended.

And so Written in Blood was the book!

I knew none of the authors, and I discovered that none of them were established crime writers and that they were a diverse and intriguing group of women. Some had been published before but others not. That made Written in Blood a very interesting proposition that I could approach with absolutely no preconceptions.

I found a wonderfully diverse set of stories, covering so many different areas of crime fiction. Some conventional crime that the library would put on the crime fiction shelves, and some stories that approached crime in a very different way, or where crime was incidental, that would be shelved with general fiction.

So many different characters, so many different lives, were offered up in so many different ways.

There was action, there was drama, there was comedy, there was tragedy …

I’m never sure how to write about short story collections, but this time around I have decided that, as there were so many fine stories, the best thing I can do is a whistle-stop tour:

Man and Boy by Yasmin Ali opens with a striking picture of a council estate.

“The sky spills like damp stuffing from a fly tipped mattress. the houses are not old. they are puny and scuffed with tiny gardens full of random, blighted vegetation and windblown polystyrene and cigarette butts. Some windows are chipboarded up. Others have curtains, but they betoken a fragile feminine resistance that would crumble easily before the threat of a matchstick or a brick.”

The story that follows is just as striking. It tells of the consequences, positive and negative, predictable and less so, of a gun being stored in a family home. A very cleverly constructed short story.

Tailings by Caroline Clark is a very different story. A student from mew Zealand finds a body on the Welsh hill farm she is visiting. There seems to be no solution – and no direction to the story – but a clever deduction twists everything together beautifully. A quiet and clever story.

The Wolf in the Attic by Anita Rowe is gem. The storytelling is pitch perfect from the start.

“You wouldn’t think, to look at me, that I have anything to hide. I sit here in my creative writing class, a short, stout middle-aged woman in twinset and pearls, the epitome of Welsh middle-class respectability. Retired nurse, empty nester, divorcee living alone, carefully nurtured pretence of total celibacy – now threatening to become reality – dabbling in a little creative scribbling to while away all these new-found leisure hours. But really, it’s not like that at all. I joined this class with the express purpose of making a confession in safety …”

As Envis painted a picture of her childhood with the little half-sister she envied so I thought I knew where this one was going. Then I change my mind. And then my mind was changed for me. An intelligent and gripping piece of storytelling.

Ten Little Londoners by Joy Tucker painted a picture of life in a women’s hostel. A woman disappeared, life went on, nobody was too concerned, but they really should have been. This was a simple story that left space to think, to wonder …

The Sound of Crying by Helen Lewis is another stand-out. An atmospheric tale of motherhood, medicine and grief. I’d love to say more but I can’t, so I will simply note that the author’s biography indicates that she has written a novel and that I would love to know a little more about it.

Cherry Pie by Kay Sheard took an extraordinary concept – a woman approached by a girl claiming that she is her daughter who drowned in infancy – and then took her story down some very unusual roads to reach a classic ending. This one is a true original!

China Doll by Kate Kinnersley rang the changes, with a little Welsh noir. Not a style I care for, but I could see that it was well done.

Bitter Harvest by Val Douglas told the story of two children born to neighbours on the same day. A bright girl and a brain-damaged boy. The story was nicely constructed, but it was a little predictable and I didn’t care for the stereotypes.

Killing the Village Cat by Jan Baker painted a lovely picture of life in a small village as it told the story of that death and its consequences. It was very readable, and highly entertaining but it was more of a sketch than a short story. And, sure enough, the author’s biography told me that  she was writing a novel using the characters created for this short story. It could be good …

The Emerald Earring by Sue Anderson had a familiar feel. A young man used his wife to rob an elderly aunt. But just who was using who?

“Swaying on its golden wire, the emerald flashed in the firelight, sending out little sparks. “So what are you going to do now?” he said. she couldn’t see him properly – the firelight had given him a golden halo but his face was in shadow. She thought about it: it hadn’t been easy, stealing something so valuable. It took nerve. She couldn’t have done it without him.”

Yes, the tale had a  familiar ring, but the author added some lovely ingredients of her own to produce a lovely little story.

Pork Pies by Maggie Cainen saw an old woman reminiscing about her childhood. A lovely picture, marred only by her mother chopping up the rent collector and feeding him to the pigs … Very nicely done.

Christmas Presents by Hilary Bowers introduces Bubbles, a would be party-girl constrained by poverty. She dreams of a share in the proceeds of a local Post Office Robbery. And she finds that her dreams might come true, but that the price will be high. Much too high. The character and her world are vividly evoked, and I really wanted to know what would happen to her. A fine piece of storytelling, with a nasty sting in the tale.

Within a Whisker by Beryl Roberts tells the story of a con man, trapped in South Africa and looking for a way out. I could see that the story was well executed, but it just wasn’t my sort of story.

The Visitor by Delphine Richard was a gem. A gunman stumbles into a Welsh farmhouse, setting into motion a story that balances drama and comedy, crime and domestic detail quite perfectly.

Without a Trace by Imogen Rhia Herrad was the last story, and it was a very accomplished tale. A beautifully written, perfectly executed revenge drama that very nearly took my breath away.

A fitting end.

Written in Blood is a fine selection of stories, and it is clear that traditional art of the storyteller is clearly alive and well in Wales

*****

The Crime Fiction Alphabet is hosted by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise.

“Each week, beginning Monday 10 January 2011, you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week …”

And so next week X is for … ?

22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson

22 Britannia Road begins where World War II ends. It is the story of the reunion of a family separated at the start of the war. Janusz, Silvana and their son Aurek.

The couple was separated in the early days of the war.

Janusz joined the Polish army and survived German air attacks, but became separated
from his regiment. Knowing that he would be branded, treated as a deserter, he fled occupied Poland and made a difficult journey across Europe, to fight alongside the British.

Left behind in Warsaw, Silvana was treated brutally by occupying forces. And so she too fled, joining an exodus from the city, with her baby son in her arms. Eventually they found food and shelter in the great forest, but it came at a high price.

After the war Janusz begins the search for his family. And he begins to build them a future: He secures a job in an engineering works, and a home at 22 Britannia Road in the east coast market town of Ipswich.

And Silvana and Aurek are found in a refugee camp. The family will be reunited. But happy endings aren’t that easy.

Janusz and Silvana have had such different experiences. They are the still the same people, but the war has changed them. How could it not?

And however can a child who only remembers life in the forest, bound close to his mother, adapt to such a new, alien world?

Amanda Hodgkinson tells all of the family’s stories, painting such different pictures of their lives before, during and after the war. And each picture was filled with such vivid details.

Her prose was simple plain and clear, and it told me everything that I needed to know. I saw into the hearts and minds of all three members of the family, and I learned their secrets. They came alive, and I understood just why they acted as they did.

The stories of their lives before during and after the war were intertwined. Multiple viewpoints and narrators can be tricky, but with this book I had no problems. I think that was because I was always interested, I always cared.

The wartime stories were painful, but I held on because I knew that there was hope for the future. And the post-war stories captivated me as I watched the family struggle to cope with such different lives and the burdens of the secrets they carried.

And the question of how to come to terms with the past, how to accept change, whether it would be possible to build a new future never went away.

The story built to a conclusion that was both dramatic and right, and flowed so naturally out of the characters and their world.

22 Britannia Road is a thought-provoking and very readable debut novel. I will be very disappointed if I don’t see it winning plaudits, and maybe even listed for certain literary awards …

The Crime Fiction Alphabet meets A Month of Dutch Literature: V is for Van der Vlugt

Now, where was I?

Four days ago I had a post written in my head, but before I could capture it I lost my internet connection. Completely.

I missed many my link to other readers, but without it for a few days I did a lot more reading. And I used the half hour a day available to me a the library to check email and continue my search for a job.

I’m still lacking a wireless connection, but for the moment I have salvaged a wired link and so I will try to pull that post out of the back of my mind …

Shadow Sister by Simone Van Der Vlugt seemed to be the perfect book. I had enjoyed the author’s first book, which I wrote about here, and so her second would nicely fill the V slot in my Crime Fiction Alphabet. And letter V fell in the middle of June,  so that the same book would fall nicely for A Month of Dutch Literature.

It was too perfect. I’m afraid the book was rather disappointing. It fell into the classic trap for crime fiction, of compromising characters for the sake of the plot. And I’m afraid there were problems with the plot too.

I must say now that this isn’t going to be a hatchet job. There were good things, things I liked, and I had no problem reading to the end. But I was disappointed.

The story began promisingly.

“All of a sudden he’s got a knife. The flash as he draws it is so unexpected fear paralyses me. I try to speak, but the sound dies in my throat. I can only stare at the blade glinting in the light streaming through the classroom window.”

Lydia taught in a language school. It could be difficult, but she cared, she felt she was doing good, and she was professional.

Her husband was less happy. Particularly when Lydia acceded to her school’s wish to deal with the student who pulled a knife on her quietly, in-house, to try to prevent damage to its reputation.

But Elisa, her twin sister, understood. The two woman were very different. Lydia, the teacher, was married with a child, organised, she knew where she was going in life. Elisa though was single, a photographer, and much more spontaneous in how she lived her life. Yes, two very different women, but they were joined by a shared history and they understood each other perfectly.

Until, just days after the knife incident, Lydia is killed.

And then the story is split. Between Lydia and the days leading up to her death, and Elisa in the days after as she grieved and searched for answers. It’s a very effective structure, drawing the reader into each life, each situation, and then unsettling as the realisation surfaces that one of those women is dead.

And initially I believed in them both, but things went a little wrong. Lydia’s character was compromised as her story was used to make points about immigrants and cultural differences. They were valid points, but they were pushed that little bit too hard. And Elisa’s character was compromised by the author’s decision push other aspects of her grief to one side and focus only on her need to know what happened.

I wondered if there was a very different novel trying to get out here. A story of family, culture and loss, that had been compromised by the need, or wish, to produce a book that sat more naturally in the crime fiction genre …

As a murder mystery Shadow Sister started well, but then it faltered. Because secondary characters were so very lightly sketched. Because so many secrets emerged. And because there were too many times when characters said and did things that I couldn’t believe in order to make the plot work.

And I’m afraid the ending didn’t work either. I knew when a killer was unmasked sixty pages before the end that there would be another twist to come. And there was, a very predictable twist that I’ve seen so many times before.

After that though, there was a final moment that worked beautifully, And there had been other moments before.

That made the weaknesses, the crime fiction clichés, so frustrating. Because those high points reminded me that Simone Van der Vlugt can write wonderful crime fiction, and made me think that she might do well to bend, or even break, the conventions of the genre …

Translated by Michele Hutchison

*****

The Crime Fiction Alphabet is hosted by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise.

“Each week, beginning Monday 10 January 2011, you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week …”

And so next week W is for … ?